Updating profiles through Constant Contact with Blackbaud overwrite

Allyson Austin
Allyson Austin
in Raiser's Edge NXT Discussions

I am trying to understand the best way to manage constituent-initiated profile updates between Constant Contact and Blackbaud.

I understand that the data in Blackbaud will always be considered "correct" during sync. So what happens if a constituent opts to update their own profile via the link in an email?

A couple scenarios I'm currently struggling with:

- We cannot use our Blackbaud sync list directly for email in Constant Contact because if anyone signs up for that list, they'll get kicked off next sync. (So we're mapping our contacts to interest lists after they appear from the Blackbaud sync. This also allows people to accurately self-select which lists they'd like to appear on.)

- I know that if people unsubscribe, their consent record will be updated and they will stop syncing over. But if they change their email address or other information, how do we capture that updated data without it being overwritten by Blackbaud on the next sync?

I've been banging my head against these issues for weeks and it's preventing me from fully migrating our comms. Seems like there should be a relatively simple solution for basic contact data management like this.

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Answers

  • Data Intelligence Consultant
    Data Intelligence Consultant
    Second Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Allyson, we see this similar scenario with our outside email solutions provider (Engaging Networks) - to make a long story short, we had to develop our own integration process which checks which record was most recently updated (name, address, email, opt in/out, groups, etc, etc). Therefore, regardless of wh/ how the record was updated most systems are sync'ed based on whichever was most recently updated.

    Between, the RE SkyAPI and the Constant Contact api framework you should be able to do the same thing.

    Thanks, Dennis

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